The Casper Journal :: Casper's Community Newspaper

What do you think of this idea: cite a law you don’t wish to comply with in writing and bingo, it no longer applies to you. Then go about your business without regard to that law because you say so and because you have it on paper to prove it.

That is basically what the Natrona County School District is proposing in revisions to its Compact, a document that outlines the trust and methods of decision making used by the district.

It was the solution at the end of a hard negotiation between the school board and its employees in 2001. The agreement places a lot of the district’s decision making process in a committee, aptly named the Compact Issues Committee (CIC).

The committee is composed of representatives of the district’s four employee unions, the superintendent and associate superintendents, and the publicly elected members of the school board.

The change the district is proposing specifically states:

“The presence of five (5) or more members of the Board of Trustees at a CIC meeting is not and shall not be considered an “agency” or Board of Trustees meeting pursuant to the Wyoming Public Meetings Act W.S. 16-4-402; Trustees participate in a CIC meeting as members of a larger group, and are not meeting as a discrete board or entity under the requirements of W.S. Sec. 16-4-402.”

The NCSD is suggesting, in proposed revisions to the Compact, that the presence of a quorum of school board members attending the Compact Issues Committee, where nothing but school business is discussed, is not subject to the Wyoming Public Meeting Act, because the board does not vote at those meetings.

They contend they are exempt because the trustees are meeting as part of a larger group and not as the school board, per se.

But a quorum of school trustees in a room discussing school district business falls under the Wyoming Public Meeting Act, which clearly states that if quorums of public officials meet and talk about public business, notice of that meeting must be given to the public in advance and the public must be given access to the meeting.

It makes no difference if the meeting is around a campfire, at a child’s birthday party or in a board room; if a quorum of public officials meet and they discuss business, they are subject to this law.

So it doesn’t matter how many additional people the school board involves in the process; they still are responsible to the letter and spirit of the law. In fact, it is more likely the reverse of their argument.

The school board trustees have abdicated so much of the responsibility for decision making to specific employee representatives. Because of that, those specific representatives become public figures, responsible to the Wyoming Public Meeting Act, as if they too were elected, for their work with the Compact Issues Committee.

Many of the school board trustees are good people, and their intentions are absolutely honorable. But they spend terrific amounts of public money.

So what really doesn’t make sense is why they would even want to conduct any business without the protection that doing the public’s business in the light of the public’s view affords.

But this discussion is good because it defines and makes crystal clear that when a quorum of school board trustees meets anyplace to discuss school business, they are subject to the Wyoming Public Meetings Act. You can find it in writing at http://legisweb.state.wy.us/statutes/compress/title16.doc.

All of the proposed changes can be found online at www.natronaschools.org by scrolling down on the main page. The district has asked its employees to comment on the changes, but has not extended that invitation to the public.

But the Natrona County School District is not a privately held company; it spends massive amounts of public money, doing the public’s business.

It makes decisions that affect every person who pays taxes in Natrona County, and the public has a right n and a responsibility n to comment when a public entity makes a questionable recommendation like this one.

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